


Other effects of people's (highly inconsiderate) world travelling

by LorienofLoth



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Gen, Minor Canonical Character(s), being massively affected by the actions of canon characters without it being considered in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorienofLoth/pseuds/LorienofLoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Romillia Chant goes to bed on Wednesday night an orphan in one world, and wakes up in another with parents (although admittedly, they're not hers), and, aside from a brief interlude on Sunday, she stays there. So let's talk about Romillia Chant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other effects of people's (highly inconsiderate) world travelling

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, firstly, I apologise because this isn't beta-read. Or even proof-read, because I didn't want to give myself a chance to talk myself out of posting, because this is my first post. So feel free to critique. But the main thing I suppose is that I was rereading Charmed Life to my brother recently, and I noticed that, yes, the other Chant girls all just jump worlds. No-one, as far as I can tell, even tells them what is happening. And I don't know how you'd cope with that. Also, I feel like Romillia is just dismissed as a timid, unhappy orphan a bit, so you know. This happened.

Let’s talk about Romillia Chant. Let’s talk about being orphaned at eight-and-a-half in a house fire, and never touching matches again. Let’s talk about wearing a black dress and shiny, patent leather shoes—doesn’t she look cute? Isn’t she just the sweetest thing?—and having grown-ups say, when they see the blood from a lip bitten too hard, and blank eyes staring straight ahead, ‘let it out, Romillia. It’s alright to cry, darling,’ and wanting to scream and scream and scream—but they don’t say it’s alright to scream. Only to cry. So Romillia Chant doesn’t cry (or shout or scream or whimper) at her parents’ funeral, and slowly the comments turn: such a pretty little girl becomes such a funny little girl; so sweet becomes so sad; why can’t my children behave like her becomes I don’t want her around my children.  
Let’s talk about the orphanage where Romillia Chant spent her ninth birthday (and her tenth, and her eleventh, and her twelfth) and the ice-cream parlour where she didn’t. Let’s talk about the hoverlines, and the hoverport only two miles from the orphanage where Romillia spends her evenings and her weekends, packing sandwiches and ensconcing herself in the rigging. Let’s talk about the pilots with their peaked caps who doff them at the ‘young lady’ when their superiors aren’t about, and the bosuns who show her how to tie knots, and the midshipmen, who hand her their mops and buckets with a laugh, only to stand there, shame-faced, as she climbs aboard and starts cleaning.  
Let’s talk about the boys who say, ‘don’t let Chant have matches—God, anyone would think you want the pyro playing with fire,’ and the girls who say, ‘was it because your parents didn’t love you? Because I wouldn’t love you either,’ and run off giggling. Let’s talk about being slapped by Amberly Keaton and freezing in anger and shock and fear, and of overhearing the orphanage staff say ‘such a timid girl,’ and hating hating hating the word.  
Let’s talk about Romillia waking up in a bed which isn’t hers, to her father hammering on the door, and leaping out of bed to hug him, only for him to say, ‘hey, Janet, what’s with the enthusiasm?’, and stopping cold. Let’s talk about clinging to the Chants anyway, because even though they’re not her parents (no-one called her dad Frankie. Everyone called her mum Lina. Her mum would have shaved her head before she had a bob. Francis Chant couldn’t make toast, let alone pancakes) they are. They make her pancakes and talk about potential summer holidays and test her on her times tables, and Romillia loves the attention.  
Let’s talk about reappearing in the ruins of her old house three days later and falling to her knees in the ruins and crying, wanting to hate the universe for showing her what she could have had, then taking it away, but instead just crying. Because Romillia Chant is timid, and can only cry, and cry, and cry, as if the universe is punishing her for her initial failure.  
Let’s talk about falling back into the Chant house and having Frankie Chant—not her dad, not her dad—come into her room to ask what she wants for tea, and just crying.  
Let’s talk, too, of the confused look on her teacher’s face when Romillia says she wants to pilot a hovercraft, and of the fact that they don’t exist, that these Other Chants, these Otherworlders, think their aeroplanes are an adequate substitute. Let’s talk about ignoring Janet Chant in the register until it earns her a demerit, and turning around every time she hears someone say Rome, until Tracy Collins, who went to Italy last summer, asks her what she’s looking at. Let’s talk about how Romillia Chant never buys a house, never bothers to decorate, never gets too attached to her possessions. Let’s talk about how when she comes home one day to find her flat burgled, she just shrugs and says there was nothing of import there, and how when her friends (Janet’s friends) say she’s distant, she just shrugs and finds new ones (and again and again and again).  
But let’s talk, also, of how she gets an A in O-level Physics (and a 3 in CSE History, but it’s like they tried to make that awkward. Since when was America independent?) and goes on to become a naval engineer. Let’s talk about how she meets a boy (many boys) who laugh at her quirks and buy her hot chocolate, and if it isn’t quite sweet caramel like her mum used to make, it’s not far off either. Let’s talk about how Romillia Chant travels between bases and knows that she might not have a home, but she knows how to make one.  
Let’s talk about how Romillia Chant stopped referring to 12B as Janet’s world, and started referring to it as hers.


End file.
